


I Knew It Was You

by lunalius



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Someone really does straight up die okay, Vampire-Fay rivalry, You've been warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-09-27 12:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunalius/pseuds/lunalius
Summary: Doyoung sees a vision of the man destined to kill him and falls in love anyway.





	I Knew It Was You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> You did leave the ending up to me so I hope you're not too hurt by this one!

With a gasp, Doyoung’s eyes flew open and he almost fell off the old tree stump he had seated himself on. He could barely feel it when he hit the ground. His head felt light and he struggled to get air into his lungs and he pressed his hands into the dirt ground, hoping it would return the feeling that was lost on his fingers.  
  
He felt a presence kneeling next to him. “Hold your breath,” Taeil said, quiet but firm, “Try to hold it for six counts.”  
  
Doyoung did as he was told, and then some breathing exercises as Taeil instructed. In a minute, he found his breathing returning to normal. His head still felt woozy but at least he didn’t feel like his soul was trying to claw his way out of his body.  
  
Not that he had a soul.  
  
“Thank you,” Doyoung whispered. He tried to push himself off the ground, but his ankle gave way and his tailbone hit the ground. Doyoung winced in pain.  
  
Taeil held a cane out for Doyoung to hold onto (weakly) and pulled him up with an impressive amount of strength. “Are you alright?”  
  
“Quite,” Doyoung replied once he was sitting back on the tree stump. He took a moment to close his eyes and focus on his breathing. He allowed himself to lose his poise, hands on his knees and back slumped as the sensation slowly returned to the tips of his fingers and toes. When he looked up, Taeil had returned to his seat on the other side of his stone table, legs crossed and hands clasped together, resting on one knee.  
  
“What did you see?” Taeil asked. His face was carefully void of expression – something Doyoung wouldn’t have been able to decipher if he hadn’t already known Taeil for a handful of centuries. He only asked as a formality – he was the Oracle and he saw everything.  
  
“I saw a face,” Doyoung gritted out. He tugged at his collar, hoping Taeil would prompt him to say more. He didn’t. “It was one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen. And I mean, of all time.”  
  
“Impressive,” Taeil nodded. “What else?”  
  
“He was,” Doyoung stopped. He felt his breathing get erratic and leaned over Taeil’s stone table, trying to slow his breaths again. “He drove a stake through my chest. My heart. I could feel it going through.” Doyoung bit his lip, squinting at Taeil. “How could I feel it so clearly?”  
  
“Some visions are more… thorough than others. It depends on how much the Fates want you to know.” Taeil pursed his lips. “I only allowed you to touch me and see for yourself because I knew you could handle it.”  
  
“I know.” The Oracle wasn’t allowed direct contact with anyone, because anyone who did saw everything that he did – which was often all too much, all at once. Mere mortals weren’t in touch with the supernatural enough to sort through and find what they want – in fact, even most non-mortals couldn’t handle it. It was a select few and Doyoung knew Taeil would rather err on the side of caution.  
  
Vampires could handle it. But Doyoung was the last vampire left.  
  
“You mentioned he was beautiful,” Taeil said, this time with an edge in his voice that wasn’t there before. He sounded amused. “That’s high praise, coming from you.”  
  
Doyoung gulped. Seeing the face, revelling in its beauty – it was like the finest of bronze sculpture – and then his eyes drifting down against his will to see a hand and a stake and the stake going through his chest, and –  
  
“Remember,” Taeil interrupted him, “Hold your breath.”  
  
Doyoung must have been hysterical again. He gripped the ends of the stone table and squeezed till he could feel the grain dig into his skin.  
  
“Don’t do that.”  
  
Doyoung let go. “He definitely wasn’t human. Whoever that face belonged to.”  
  
“No, he didn’t seem as such.”  
  
Taeil absolutely knew more, but even if Doyoung wanted answers he knew he wouldn’t receive them. Everything would be revealed in time.  
  
“Well,” Doyoung sighed, pulling away from the table, “I should be off.” Within seconds, Doyoung had adjusted his bowtie and straightened out his hair and coat. His expression hardened as he prepared to leave Taeil’s hut and back into the outside world. “You know,” he mused, “You could do much better than this hovel. The Oracles of old were given magnificent temples, even when Delphi had to be evacuated.”  
  
“You know why I have to remain in hiding.”  
  
“I do,” Doyoung responded. “I’m just saying that compared to your predecessors, you could at least set up in a nice apartment in the outskirts of the city. I understand you no cannot access the same kind of wealth as your predecessors but you could always make a fortune in the stocks. That’s what everyone seems to be doing these days.”  
  
Taeil’s eye glinted. “Everyone else cannot see what I can.”  
  
Doyoung stared at his old friend for a long moment before nodding. “Everything good must come crashing down eventually.”  
  
Taeil’s glint disappeared, and Doyoung took it as his cue to leave. “Will you visit me again? I feel my life force is finally starting to wane.”  
  
Doyoung allowed a smile when he turned back to look at Taeil. “Of course, my friend. I shall do my best.”  
  
+++  
  
It wasn’t for another ninety or so years that Doyoung was confronted with the face again. That one, the beautiful one he’d seen in Taeil’s vision. He never forgot it, but he also had no reason to think about it in a while.  
  
Now he saw it in person.  
  
He wasn’t the first to make eyes at Doyoung over the bar counter, and he wouldn’t be the last. Doyoung was used to the attention and usually didn’t pay them any mind, but this time he had to double take. He was immediately self conscious — why was he here? Was he here to kill him? Was today the day?  
  
No. The setting was all wrong. Not that Doyoung could recall a particular setting, but it certainly wasn’t in his own club.  
  
He decided it was time to leave the front bar and return to the office. He preferred working amongst all the action in his nightclub — it made him feel less lonely — but the face had truly spooked him. He wasn’t sure what the rest of the night had in store for him.  
  
He was comparing the current budget to the previous week’s — completely unnecessary, since it was only midnight and the parties were just beginning — when Johnny barged into the back room. “Hey boss, what’re you doing hiding out that back?”  
  
“I’m not hiding,” Doyoung responded far too quickly. He swivelled around in his seat to face the young bartender. “What do you want?”  
  
“Uh, just this customer that keeps asking if you’d gone home.” Johnny leaned against the doorway, smirk only exaggerated by the dim neon lighting of the office. “He’s way cute, boss. You have to take him home. It’s been ages since you did that.”  
  
Doyoung had developed a bit of a reputation amongst his staff of, very occasionally, taking someone particularly good-looking back home with him. What they didn’t know is that he only did it to feed when one of his hunting expeditions came back empty. He only ever took enough to last him a few nights so as not to arouse suspicion, so that he could be of sound mind when going out for more blood. It was hard not being able to suck them dry, but he couldn’t risk it. Human crime squads were far too clever nowadays.  
  
Not to mention the fay would notice the pattern immediately.  
  
“So?” Johnny asked again, and Doyoung realised he hadn’t said anything. “Are you gonna talk to him, or am I going to steal him away?”  
  
“I’ll talk to him,” Doyoung said, rising from his seat. He straightened out the front of his silk button-up, rolling up his sleeves, earning a raised eyebrow from his bartender. For whatever reason, Doyoung could never intimidate Johnny. The man never let anything faze him. “I’ll be right out.”  
  
The man with that face was still sitting there, seemingly sulking into his gin and tonic. His face was flushed in that way Doyoung had seen on countless customers before, and he only now noticed the sheen of gloss on his pouted lips. He caught Doyoung walking in from the corner of his eye and quickly sat up straight, his eyes sparkling in a way that made Doyoung want to see it sparkle like that as much as possible and—  
  
Doyoung was terrified. But he couldn’t show it.  
  
“You were asking for me?” he asked, placing his clasped hands on the sticky bar counter.  
  
“I thought you’d gone home,” the man said. “Bugged me a little bit that you didn’t even say hi.”  
  
Doyoung raised an eyebrow. “I was meant to say hi?”  
  
The man shuffled in his seat so he could lean further over the bar counter. “You’re not human, are you?”  
  
Doyoung resisted the urge to gulp. “I’m not. And neither are you.”  
  
He watched as the man’s lips spread into a wide grin. “I was hoping you could tell. What are you? I can’t seem to figure out what you are.”  
  
“I’m half hulder.” It was Doyoung’s go-to alibi. “My mother’s side. Father was human.”  
  
The man nodded, looking Doyoung up and down in a way that would have made him shiver if he was a lesser man. “Explains a lot.”  
  
“What about you?”  
  
“I’m just fay.” The man took a long sip of his now almost empty gin and tonic. “Half pixie, half elf. Didn’t get the wings, unfortunately.”  
  
Great.  
  
Doyoung should have known the one destined to kill him was fay. There was no one else that possibly could, anyway. Despite all the silly stories humans told about vampires being allergic to garlic and mirrors and crosses, Doyoung was unaffected by all of that. Vampires — even Doyoung himself — had been around much longer than any silly medieval folktale, much longer than Christianity or any modern religion, certainly much longer than domestic garlic. The main thing that could truly defeat a vampire was magic, and the fay had magic in plenty.  
  
Of course Doyoung’s killer would be fay.  
  
“I’m Taeyong, by the way,” the man said. Doyoung looked up in alarm.  
  
And now he knew his name.  
  
“Why did you approach me?” Doyoung asked, keeping his face as relaxed as possible. He didn’t want to appear suspicious.  
  
Taeyong shrugged. “People go to clubs to look for the best-looking person there and try to get their attention, right?”  
  
Doyoung blinked. “Is that… all?”  
  
“Duh.” Taeyong leaned over the counter again, and the angle was such that he was looking up at Doyoung through the top of his lashes. Doyoung hated it. “Shouldn’t this happen to you all the time? Being half hulder and all.”  
  
“Yes. Of course it does.” He didn’t know why this fay was having such an effect on him.  
  
“Hm.” Taeyong lifted his empty glass to his face, swivelling it around as if making sure it was empty on all sides. He might’ve been more drunk than Doyoung thought, and that could work to his advantage. “Get me another drink, will you? A long island ice tea, maybe.”  
  
“Aren’t you a little too drunk to be having one of those at this point?”  
  
“You’re too hot to be on the other side of that bar instead of in my bedroom, but here we are.”  
  
Doyoung laughed. He couldn’t help himself. Taeyong was destined to kill him, and it could happen _any time now_ , but right now he seemed to want nothing more than to flirt with him. Doyoung’s mind-reading abilities were limited — he never was as good as his long-lost peers — but he could at least tell, whether through psychic ability or general behaviour cues, when someone was lying.  
  
Of course, the fay could be a fantastic actor. Perhaps they have some kind of psychic block that Doyoung hasn’t come across. It’s been a while since he’s been to the Underground.  
  
“Perhaps when you’re not so drunk,” Doyoung finally offered, putting a frown on Taeyong’s face.  
  
“I’ll hold you to it,” Taeyong finally said, voice clear, and Doyoung had a feeling he really would.  
  
+++  
  
When he didn’t need to be off hunting, Doyoung spent his Monday nights in the woods in the outskirts of the city. It was the first of his two days off, his “weekend” of sorts, and he surrounded himself with as much nature as possible. The contemporary city could be a comfort, in a way, especially since the purge, where he could just blend into the crowd and disappear — but he’d spent far too many millennia living freely in the wilderness to be completely at ease. It was too neon, the air was filthy, and despite having had eons to get used to the noise, he didn’t think he ever would.  
  
This forest was the closest thing he would get to some semblance of his past. He doesn’t remember what his life was like before he was turned, but the area he initially roamed used to have a village with houses dug into the ground, and paddy fields. He supposed that was where he lived. He might have been responsible for killing his entire family when he wiped the village out during his fledgeling blood-thirst. The tall, towering trees and the moss and the owls wasn’t quite the environment he spent his earliest years in, but it was nature, at least.  
  
It was normally just sounds of birds, the snoring of bears, the rare team of campers that were brave enough to spend the night. And heartbeats. Doyoung could often tell what kind of creature it was through its heartbeat.  
  
There was a particularly erratic one now that was ruining his meditation, and it wasn’t human or animal. And it was close.  
  
“Hey there,” a voice called, and Doyoung opened his eyes to see Taeyong staring up at him from the ground. He decided against leaving his perch on the branch of his favourite elm tree — he couldn’t be bothered pretend to struggle climbing down — and instead chose to observe the fay from above. “Fancy meeting you here.”  
  
“Are you stalking me?” Doyoung called back, and Taeyong’s face completely transformed as he laughed, his eyes shrinking into crescents and smile lines appearing around his face. Doyoung felt something surge through his body that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.  
  
“Not this time.” Taeyong nodded towards a hollow in the tree trunk just above Doyoung’s branch. “Can I join you?”  
  
Doyoung looked up at the hollow. It didn’t look person-sized. “Can you fit?”  
  
“I think I can manage it.”  
  
Taeyong had showed up at the club the evening after they’d met, five minutes after opening, demanding that Doyoung take him out on a date. As Doyoung had watched him get progressively more drunk the night before, his fear of the man had receded — he was just a dumb half-pixie on a night out, with no other intentions. He’d moved onto flirting with Johnny until the bartender had brought up his “plushie” collection (Doyoung didn’t know what a “plushie” was) and Taeyong returned to hitting on Doyoung before passing out. The only thing Doyoung could possibly be suspicious of was whether he was a fantastic actor or not, but even acting had its limits.  
  
Doyoung had to turn him down gently when Taeyong returned the next day sober. And again the next day, and the day after that. But on the third day, he did manage to get Doyoung’s name.  
  
He was impressed Taeyong even made it up the tree at all. It took him a few minutes, but he had charmed his hands with something sticky so he climbed much faster than Doyoung expected. Doyoung watched, heart stuck in his throat, as Taeyong folded in on himself to fit into the tree, tucking his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “Is that comfortable for you?”  
  
“Yes. I’m surprised it’s empty, actually. Looks like prime bird real estate.”  
  
Doyoung bit his lip, not letting himself laugh. “It’s too large. It doesn’t offer the right sort of protection for their young. If it rains, it’ll flood inside.”  
  
“Never thought of that.” Taeyong ran a hand down the rim of the hollow. “Maybe a bear?”  
  
“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a bear that small.”  
  
Taeyong frowned. “I could shrink one.”  
  
“I don’t recommend it. I doubt your friends over at the Department of Secrecy would recommend it either.”  
  
Taeyong stared at Doyoung in a way that made his chest hurt again, an odd sparkle in his eye that he could probably have placed were it directed at someone else. “You’re a killjoy.”  
  
“You don’t spent a lot of time around nature, do you?”  
  
Taeyong winced. “No. Not real nature, at least. Not untamed, like this.”  
  
Doyoung shrugged. “I don’t see anything wrong with a good farm.”  
  
“A farm?” Taeyong snickered, “You run a nightclub.”  
  
“Well yes, because it makes much more money than a farm.” Doyoung shifted so he was straddling the branch he was sitting on, facing the trunk. He had a better view of the fay that way. “Do you come to the Real World often?”  
  
“I didn’t have the opportunity before, but I get to more often now. It’s a learning experience.”  
  
“Hm.”  
  
“Do you live here?”  
  
“Oh, yes,” Doyoung nodded. “I have for a while now. I find it much more interesting.”  
  
“Must be easy for you, since you’re half human.”  
  
“I suppose so.”  
  
Taeyong sighed, nuzzling his cheek into the bark inside of the hollow. Doyoung tried not to let his eyes focus on how it scratched at the surface of his skin. “I’ve been considering moving myself here permanently. You’re right, it is much more interesting.”  
  
“Then why don’t you?”  
  
Taeyong’s eyes flashed back at Doyoung, his eyes sparkling in that way again that had him both excited and afraid. “Maybe if I had a good enough reason, I would.”  
  
Doyoung bit at the inside of his cheek. “And what would that be?”  
  
“Oh, you know,” Taeyong grinned, “There’s this guy I’m interested in, and I’m pretty sure he’s interested in me too but he keeps turning me down…”  
  
Doyoung remained silent. Taeyong was right, he’d be stupid to deny he wasn’t interested in something physical with him at the very least, but Taeyong didn’t know that he was supposed to kill him.  
  
Did he?  
  
“Kiss me if you’ve changed your mind, by the way.”  
  
Doyoung snapped back to reality. “What?”  
  
“I said,” Taeyong leaned out of his hollow, craning his neck down as close to where Doyoung was sitting as possible. “Kiss me if you’ve changed your mind. Or I could kiss you myself.”  
  
“Someone’s confident.”  
  
“Someone’s right.” Taeyong bit his lip, “I am right, aren’t I? I’m not wrong? Gosh, I’m so sorry if I’ve totally misread the situation—”  
  
“Ugh,” Doyoung grunted, balancing on his knees — precarious, but Doyoung knew it wouldn’t kill him — reaching up for Taeyong’s cheek.  
  
The little “yes!” Taeyong whisper-cheered before Doyoung kissed him would be imprinted in his memory for as long as he would have it.  
  
+++  
  
Doyoung woke to the sound of incessant beeping coming from very close to his ear. He wasn’t a heavy sleeper to start with, but the noise coupled with a sudden dead weight on his chest was enough to have him unable to go back to sleep. “Tae…”  
  
“I just have to take this,” Taeyong mumbled sleepily, squinting at the screen of his Iris-eiver, which had just stopped ringing. He swiftly unplugged it from its charging cable, retreating back to his end of the bed and swinging his legs over the side.  
  
“Why can’t you keep it on the table closest to you?” Doyoung asked.  
  
“My human phone is charging there, and I don’t actually need this often.” Taeyong pressed a kiss on Doyoung’s nose. “I’ll be right back.”  
  
Doyoung looked at the bright light of day barely peeking through his thick curtains. He wasn’t sure what time it was, just that it was far too early and sunny for him to do anything. Taeyong, bless his soul, had taken to shifting his schedule so that he slept during the day as well, all so he could spend more time with Doyoung. It made Doyoung long for a hug.  
  
Allowing Taeyong into his life — or, at least, giving into his incessant demands to be let in — had been an interesting experience. Taeyong was like the best kind of blood he could get — that of a young healthy adolescent, fresh enough for the blood to not be contaminated by weird hormones but still large enough that he didn’t need to feed from anyone else. It had been a while since Doyoung had hunted down a child. There were too many people who cared about children, and the resulting investigation would be too stringent.  
  
Taeyong was spoiling Doyoung, and he knew it. Doyoung had long ago convinced himself love would never be a part of his life, especially after the last of the vampires was purged. There would never be anyone as immortal as him. But Taeyong made him think feeling the way he did, needing someone the way he did, was necessary. Like it was his earth-given right.  
  
But there was also the fact that Taeyong was fay, and he was destined to kill him.  
  
No matter how much Doyoung wanted to let his guard down, he couldn’t. Despite everything, he didn’t actually want to die — he loved his world, Real and Secret, no matter how doomed both of them were. He’d like to see both to the end, if he could.  
  
That wasn’t his fate, though.  
  
“Love?” Doyoung called out when Taeyong walked back into the room, brows furrowed and lips pouted. It was cute, but Doyoung preferred him when he was smiling. “Is everything alright?”  
  
“Yeah.” Taeyong was avoiding his gaze, and it made Doyoung sit up in his bed.  
  
“Who was it?”  
  
“My boss.” Taeyong walked over to Doyoung’s table and reconnected his Iris-eiver. “Just wanted to check something.”  
  
“Sounds like bad news.”  
  
“Not… exactly.” Taeyong twiddled his thumbs. He still hadn’t looked down at Doyoung once. “Where was it you went last weekend again? You said it was somewhere in Canada.”  
  
Doyoung froze. “Quebec. Why?”  
  
“Ah. That’s still a ways away from Nova Scotia. I know you said you went north.”  
  
Doyoung tried not to let his body show any signs of discomfort or edge. He might have told everyone he was in Boston, but he really was in Nova Scotia. “No, I didn’t go in that direction. Why? Did something happen there?”  
  
Taeyong ran a hand through his hair. “A human was attacked. Most likely by a vampire.”  
  
Doyoung scoffed. “Vampire? Everyone knows those aren’t around anymore. Haven’t been for years.”  
  
“That’s not true.” Taeyong finally looked at Doyoung properly, and Doyoung was startled at the fiery look in his eyes. “There is one out there.”  
  
Doyoung grinned up at him. “Perhaps you’ve been watching too many of the human conspiracy videos.”  
  
“I have evidence. I told you I worked for fay police, didn’t I?” Doyoung nodded. “That was a lie.” Taeyong bit his lip and Doyoung waited with baited breath. “I work for the Vampire Extinction Agency.”  
  
Oh, fuck.  
  
The Vampire Extinction Agency was the very thing that had killed off the vampires in the first place. Vampires were deemed overpopulated and far too powerful by the Elven Court, and needed to be “culled”. The fay had always treated them like animals anyway; violence against their kind was condoned and vampires, for all their physical powers and capabilities, had very little power in Secret World law and society. (And many vampires believed rightly so, since it was the greed of a few vampires that had time and again begun the human persecution of non-human folk and forced them all into hiding in the Secret World.) Werewolves, shapeshifters, demigods and the lot all stood by and watched as the fay teamed up to systematically persecute vampire-kind, and as Doyoung’s loved ones died.  
  
Doyoung had so successfully blended in with the humans that over the past century that fay authorities started to wonder if there were any vampires left at all. The Vampire Extinction Agency had become null — as far as he was aware, most folk thought there was no point in them, since there were (allegedly) no vampires left. Even when the last few vampires were still alive, it seemed like there was nothing for them to do.  
  
“So…” Doyoung started, “There are more vampires left? They aren’t wiped out?”  
  
Taeyong nodded. “Just one. The MO is the same for every killing.”  
  
Doyoung shifted up in his bed. “That’s terrifying.”  
  
“It’s disgusting,” Taeyong said, in a way that sent a shiver through Doyoung’s spine. “To think that it’s been walking around his whole time, taking whatever it wants… killing children.”  
  
“It’s killed children?”  
  
“Not yet. But it’ll happen.”  
  
Doyoung could tell that Taeyong meant every single word he was saying with absolutely zero reservation, and he struggled to breath.  
  
“Is that why you’ve moved to the Real World?” Doyoung asked, “To track it? The vampire?”  
  
“And it’s why I don’t mind sleeping during the day.” Taeyong smiled, taking Doyoung’s hand and lacing their fingers together. “So I’m pretty lucky that my boyfriend works nights.”  
  
Doyoung hummed into the kiss that Taeyong pressed against his lips, letting him part his mouth and taste every corner of it. It was lucky hulder themselves had sharp fangs as well, or Doyoung would have been caught out a long time ago.  
  
“Do you have work to do?” Doyoung murmured, pulling away.  
  
Taeyong’s face set into a frown as he placed another (reluctant) kiss on Doyoung’s jaw. “Yeah, I do. Ugh.”  
  
“It’s fine, love.” Doyoung ran a hand across his cheek. “I could do with some more sleep anyway.”  
  
“Oh yes, you still have a few more hours until the sun goes down.”  
  
Doyoung blinked. “What?”  
  
“Hm? Oh,” Taeyong shrugged, getting to his feet. “It’s just that I’ve noticed that’s when you tend to wake up. Around sunset?”  
  
“Ah.” Doyoung licked his lips. “Yes, that is when I tend to wake up. I don’t exactly time it that way.”  
  
“I think it’s cute, how in tune with nature you are.”  
  
Doyoung wasn’t sure if this meant he was out of the woods or not. But for now, he’d accept it at face value.  
  
+++  
  
The SoHo loft was terrifying, if only for one tiny little globe in the corner.  
  
“Natural sunlight,” Donghyuck commented. “Gifted to me by a leprechaun friend of mine. I’m not as comfortable around you as Taeil was, so I gotta keep one of those around.”  
  
“You speak funny,” Doyoung mused. “Like a child.”  
  
Donghyuck shrugged. “I find the current vernacular to be quite expressive. Don’t you?”  
  
“I can’t say I’ve warmed up to it.”  
  
“You wouldn’t,” Donghyuck snorted. “You were born, what? 3000 years ago? I was born I the 70s.”  
  
“Stop dipping in my Kool-Aid.”  
  
It was a bad joke, but it made Donghyuck’s face light up anyway. Doyoung had never met the new Oracle, but he’d rumours of him charming everyone he met. He could certainly see why.  
  
“Now,” Donghyuck said, settling himself down in yellow ball chair just next to the globe of harnessed natural sunlight. “You need some answers.”  
  
“Yes.” Doyoung clasped his hands. “I’m sure you’re already aware of my… situation.”  
  
“I am. Super messy, by the way! Like man, you really fucked up on this one.”  
  
Doyoung winced. “Thank you.”  
  
“But I’m afraid I can’t tell you want you want to hear.”  
  
Doyoung frowned. “What? Surely if you just appealed the Fates—”  
  
“The Fates don’t work that way, doofus. Surely you of all people would know that.”  
  
Doyoung did know. But he could also hope.  
  
“Sorry, dude, but this is the kind of information the Fates just don’t want me to give out. It’s sensitive! I don’t know what you’re going to do if you know it.” Donghyuck continued quickly before Doyoung had a chance to interrupt, “I know, I know. You’re trustworthy and all that, but even the strongest of men try to avoid death.” Donghyuck’s eyes darkened then. “And you won’t. You cannot avoid death. I know you vampires aren’t used to it, but once the Fates decide it, it’s decided.”  
  
“I’m used to death,” Doyoung rebutted weakly.  
  
“You are not. You have seen death, but you do not know what it means to know you have to die one day. Prophecy or not. Not like the rest of us do.”  
  
Doyoung felt drained. It had been a while since he last fed — his trips were becoming less frequent now that Taeyong was in the picture — and he just wanted to if it was safe.  
  
“Can you at least tell me if it’s soon?” Doyoung asked quietly.  
  
Donghyuck’s expression softened. “Do you really want to know?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Then yes. It’s soon.”  
  
+++  
  
There was one way that vampires could die that didn’t involve magic.  
  
Fledgeling vampires weren’t sired from a mere bite — Mother Nature knew that would cause a whole lot of problems that they themselves couldn’t control. Siring a new, young vampire involved injecting a venom into the creature’s bloodstream, one that immediately paralysed and took several painful hours to fully take affect. That venom contained a vampire’s whole life-force — it was the thing that made a vampire undead rather than plain dead. Without it, they were just a lifeless corpse.  
  
It was a means of controlling that overpopulation that the elves had complained so much about.  
  
It was also why Doyoung never sired another vampire to join him. As the last vampire left on earth, he knew he’d just be starting an endless cycle of loneliness.  
  
+++  
  
There were far more footsteps in the wilderness of the Oregon woods than Doyoung should have been hearing in the dead of the night. Humanoid footsteps. Not animal.  
  
There was one set in particular that set the hairs at the back of his head on edge. It was familiar. He knew exactly what it was.  
  
“I knew it was you,” Taeyong said quietly, under his breath. He knew, now, that Doyoung would hear him.  
  
Doyoung turned around. “I assumed you would figure it out eventually. You’re smart.”  
  
Taeyong didn’t find the comment so amusing. “I’m an investigator.”  
  
Doyoung listened for the rest of Taeyong’s team, but they were dozens of miles away. “You came alone?”  
  
“I wanted to talk to you first.” Taeyong took a step closer. He was more afraid than anything, Doyoung realised. “To clear some things up.”  
  
Doyoung crossed his arms. “Fine. Ask away.”  
  
Taeyong took a deep breath, stealing his nerves. Doyoung could hear his heartbeat settle back into a regular pace. “Was everything a joke to you?”  
  
Doyoung blinked. “No! No, heavens no.”  
  
“No?”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
Taeyong’s heartbeat picked up again. “I loved you too.”  
  
“Loved?”  
  
“You’re a _monster_ , Doyoung.”  
  
Doyoung scoffed, rising to his full height and taking a few large steps forward. “I’m the monster? Your people are the ones who hunted my kind down to extinction. Extinction, Taeyong. Your kind decided they had that kind of power, to exterminate an entire species.”  
  
Taeyong narrowed his eyes. “You kill people, and you take pleasure in it. And you killed and you killed till you put us all in danger.”  
  
“I need to eat. That’s my sustenance. Did I ask to be created this way?” Were he a few hundred years younger, Doyoung might have cried. But he was far past that now. “Am I not a part of nature, just like you are?”  
  
“You’re mutated. You were never meant to be a thing.”  
  
“Is that what they’re teaching in fay school now?” Doyoung laughed, humourless. “Fantastic. I don’t stand a chance, do I?”  
  
Taeyong’s eyes remained narrowed, and Doyoung decided he didn’t like this look on his face. It wouldn’t matter, though. Doyoung knew he didn’t have much longer left.  
  
“The squad is on their way, but they want to torture and experiment on you before they kill you.” Taeyong pulled out a small cuboid scabbard from inside his shirt. “But god forbid, I still—” he closed his eyes, “I still love you, so I’m going to kill you quickly.”  
  
Doyoung eyed the scabbard. “Is that—?”  
  
“Bronze, dipped in both rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Passed down for generations through my family.” He pulled the stake out, gleaming in the moonlight. “It can kill you.”  
  
“You realise that if you stab me in the chest, I’ll still take time to bleed out, don’t you?” he asked, as Taeyong strode towards him, stake in hand. “You were better off charming a gun and shooting me in the head.”  
  
“Shut up, will you?” Taeyong said, voice much weaker. He sounded like he was about to cry, and Doyoung cursed that it made him want to kiss the sadness away.  
  
Doyoung waited for the pain in his chest, but Taeyong seemed to hesitate. This was exactly it — the vision he’d seen a near century ago, when he’d visited Taeil. Taeyong’s face stared up at him, eyes wide and glassed over, burrow frowed, looking absolutely stunning.  
  
“Do you think I’m doing the wrong thing?” Taeyong asked quietly.  
  
“Well, yes,” Doyoung said. “You’re about to kill me. Of course I think that’s a bad idea.”  
  
Taeyong bit his lip but Doyoung heard the chuckle rumble in his chest and stomach. That’s when he finally felt it.  
  
His head whipped down to see the stake push into his chest, through his bones. He felt it pierce his heart. He felt it pierce everything.  
  
He only felt a dull ache.  
  
More than the pain, in fact, he felt a hand on his cheek, a thumb brushing against his cheekbone. Taeyong was looking up at him and he was definitely crying now. Doyoung realised, then, that he hadn’t actually seen this far into his future.  
  
He made an snap decision. The Fates must have known he’d do it, even if he didn’t, but it made complete sense. He grasped Taeyong by the jaw and gently pushed it aside, baring his neck. His fangs were sunk into the fay’s flesh in an instant, and his venom — his life force — flowed from his mouth into Taeyong’s bloodstream. It was a good kind of painful, almost like arousal. No one told him siring someone would feel so good.  
  
As the last of the venom seeped out of his system, Doyoung used the last vestiges of his power to rush both of them, super speed, thousands of miles away. It was thousands of miles away, but Doyoung assumed he had a tracker on him if Taeyong and the Agency were able to find him so easily, and this would be enough to buy Taeyong time. If they found him, they take him in immediately for the same kind of torture they intended for Doyoung.  
  
“What have you done?” Taeyong whispered.  
  
Doyoung unlatched himself from Taeyong’s neck and felt his knees buckle underneath him. “Maybe you’ll have some more empathy now.”  
  
Taeyong stood paralysed — quite literally — in front of him. “What?”  
  
Doyoung let his eyelids shut, not finding the energy to respond. Taeyong would figure it out anyway.  
  
The last thing he remembered thing was that he was glad his death turned out better than he expected.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year :)


End file.
